Words Can Kill and Save

Words Can Kill, Words Can Also Save Commentary by jione Havea Cite Share Show Bible Passage Read by Ben Quash She got upset, such the sea, by Jonas who came up from the sea. She was struck by big waves as the tides striking the sea. Jonas went down to the sea and troubled it and came up to the land and upset it. The sea was troubled when he ran away, and the land was disrupted when he preached. The sea calmed down by the prayer and the land by the repentance. He prayed in the belly of the big fish and the Ninivites prayed in the mighty citadel. The prayer saved Jonas and the prayers saved Ninivites. Jonas ran away from God and the Ninivites, from purity. The justice locked them both like culprits. Both repented and were saved. (English translation of Aramaic script by Behnam Keryo) Calligraphy is art, and Behnam Keryo’s work is art that disturbs. The calligraphy uses Aramaic words, the language of Nineveh—Keryo’s homeland—so one should read from right to left. But where should one begin to read Keryo’s script? The calligraphy forms six free-standing circles, as if they are ripples—but do they ripple inward, or outward? Keryo’s work invites viewers to imagine the confusion that was caused by Jonah’s five Hebrew words intended for Nineveh. I imagine that Jonah’s words traumatized the people of Nineveh (see Boase & Agnew 2016) and moved them to act decisively. Keryo provided an English translation of his Aramaic script (full text above): Jonah disturbed both the sea (by his presence) and the land (by his preaching); the sea calmed down because of Jonah’s prayer (of words, in Jonah 2), and the land by the people’s repentance (with purpose). In Keryo’s script, words saved both Jonah (in the sea) and the people of Nineveh (on land). I come from a sea of islands—Oceania, Pacific Islands, Pasifika—where listening to the voices and interests of the sea and of the (is)lands is natural. For instance, the Tongan poet Kuini Salote III wrote songs in which she gave expression to the ‘voice of the wave’ (si‘i le‘o e peau) and the ‘voice of nature’ (si‘i le‘o ‘o natula). I am grateful that the late Keryo of Nineveh (modern-day Iraq) and the late Kuini Salote of Tonga heard voices and words that scriptural texts ignored (see also Havea 2020). References Boase, Elizabeth and Sarah Agnew. 2016. ‘“Whispered in the Sound of Silence”: Traumatising the Book of Jonah’, The Bible & Critical Theory, 12: 4–22. Available at https://www.bibleandcriticaltheory.com/issues/vol12-no1-2016/vol-12-no-1-2016-whispered-in-the-sound-of-silence-traumatising-the-book-of-jonah/ [accessed on 31 July 2023] Havea, Jione. 2020. Jonah: An Earth Bible Commentary (London: Bloomsbury)